May30, 2017

Washington, DC - Today, House Armed Services Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA) made the following statement about President Trump’s defense budget request:

“In keeping with President Trump’s habit of exaggeration, he has been telling Congress and journalists that his budget increases the size of the military by 56,000 servicemembers. This is a ruse, because it doesn’t take into account the 24,000 active duty and 13,000 reservists that Congress added in last year’s enacted NDAA. In fact, the real number requested is only 8,000 active duty and 2,700 reservists. This trend toward the use of misleading numbers in defense accounting is not a good thing.”